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Moralities of Intelligent Machines is a project that investigates people s attitudes towards moral choices made by artificial intelligence. In the latest study completed under the project, study participants read short narratives where either a robot, a somewhat humanoid robot known as iRobot, a robot with a strong humanoid appearance called iClooney or a human being encounters a moral problem along the lines of the trolley dilemma, making a specific decision. The participants were also shown images of these agents, after which they assessed the morality of their decisions. The study was funded by the Jane and Aatos Erkko Foundation and the Academy of Finland.
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The brain s neural activity is irregular, changing from one moment to the next. To date, this apparent noise has been thought to be due to random natural variations or measurement error. However, researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development have shown that this neural variability may provide a unique window into brain function. In a new Perspective article out now in the journal
Neuron, the authors argue that researchers need to focus more on neural variability to fully understand how behavior emerges from the brain.
When neuroscientists investigate the brain, its activity seems to vary all the time. Sometimes activity is higher or lower, rhythmic or irregular. Whereas averaging brain activity has served as a standard way of visualizing how the brain works, the irregular, seemingly random patterns in neural signals have often been disregarded. Strikingly, such irregularities in neural activity appear regardless of whether single neurons or entire br
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In your quest for true love and that elusive happily ever after, are you waiting for the right person to come along, or do you find yourself going for the cutest guy or girl in the room, hoping things will work out? Do you leave your options open, hoping to trade-up at the next opportunity, or do you invest in your relationship with an eye on the cost-benefits analysis?
For something so fundamental to our existence, mate selection remains one of humanity s most enduring mysteries. It s been the topic of intense psychological research for decades, spawning myriad hypotheses of why we choose whom we choose.
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Joe Biden is the new president of the United States, although half of the country s Republicans believe he stole the election. A lot of people believe conspiracy theories on the other side of the Atlantic. But they aren t only found there.
Conspiracy theories are not exclusive to people who storm the U.S. Capitol. Everyone believes at least one conspiracy theory, says Asbjørn Dyrendal, a professor in NTNU s Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies who specializes in conspiracy theories.
The more conspiracy theories you bring up, the more people answer yes to one of them.
That fact leads American conspiracy researcher Joseph Uscinski at the University of Miami to posit that all people believe in at least one conspiracy theory. Dyrendal basically agrees, but he modifies Uscinski s statement slightly, saying all people believe some conspiracy theory a little.